My absurd experiences in North America over the years

Why didn't you kill me?

Mikhail leaned against the corner of the wall, blood seeping from the wounds on his right shoulder and right knee, pooling into a small dark red puddle on the floor.

His face was as white as paper, and his lips were blue, but his eyes remained fixed on Li Fu.

Li Fu had his back to him, and the moonlight from outside the window shone through the gap in the curtains, falling directly on his face.

"What good would it do me if you died? I'm not a serial killer," he said, turning around and sitting back in his chair.

Mikhail's lips twitched, and it was unclear what he was thinking.

"However, I advise you to understand your situation better," Li Fu leaned back, the old springs of the chair making a low creak. "Even if I don't kill you, someone else will."

Mikhail did not speak.

"I don't understand the rules of your line of work, but I know that once an assassin fails and is exposed, they're a ticking time bomb. No matter who your employer is, the police will use your information to thoroughly investigate everything related to you..."

Li Fu paused for a moment, then slowly said, "So, do you think your employer will let you live?"

Mikhail's jaw muscles tightened slightly.

The movement was so subtle that it would have been impossible to notice if Li Fu hadn't been staring at his face the whole time.

"You are seriously injured now, and anyone could take your life, such as a nurse or a doctor, or even just a needle prick. You won't even have anyone to collect your body then, because people like you are truly all alone," Li Fu said to himself.

Mikhail's cheek twitched, his pale fingers clenching the tattered pieces of his tactical uniform.

He had imagined this scenario countless times.

Now that the mission has failed, his partner has died tragically, and he himself is seriously injured, there is no way to turn back the tide. Li Fu's words are like ice picks piercing his heart, and every word makes his mind tremble.

However, as a professional assassin, he had long been mentally prepared to face failure.

Mikhail gritted his teeth, blood seeping from the corner of his lips, his tone resolute, "Threatening me with something like this? You think I'm afraid? In our line of work, we live on the edge, none of us are afraid of death!"

"I'm not threatening you," Li Fu shook his head, "I'm just telling you the truth: there are people who want you dead more than I do, and your insistence is pointless."

The room was quiet for a while.

Mikhail leaned against the wall, his head bowed, his shoulders trembling slightly. Blood loss, accompanied by hypothermia, made him feel cold.

What's colder than my body is my current situation.

"No matter how much you ask, it's useless. I have no idea who the employer is. The contact information is encrypted multiple times, and the payments are made in cryptocurrency. There's no way to trace it back to its source..."

He stared at Li Fu, a hint of satisfaction in his eyes. "You have no way of finding out who the employer is!"

Li Fu remained silent for a moment.

He believed Mikhail wasn't lying, because if it were him, he wouldn't have let the assassin know his identity.

Although Winslop hated him to the core, he wasn't foolish enough to reveal his name to two living people who could speak at any time.

He didn't ask any more questions and stood up to leave.

"You really won't kill me?" Mikhail's voice came from behind, tinged with uncertainty.

"Someone will kill you, don't worry," Li Fu said as he opened the door.

He wasn't worried about Mikhail escaping because he had tied him up very tightly, and the man was so badly injured that he could barely crawl. If the police arrived too late, he would bleed to death.

Mikhail listened as the footsteps in the corridor grew fainter and fainter until they finally disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell.

He knew the other person had left, and as he let out a long sigh, he gradually felt despair.

Neither living nor dying is an option.

Li Fu left the apartment building and drove away directly.

He won't wait for the police to arrive.

If someone in the police station makes prior arrangements and then conveniently frames him for some crime, it would be a huge loss.

If you are summoned afterward, having a lawyer with you is much better than waiting at the scene to be taken away.

He drove the car out of that narrow street and onto the empty streets of Los Angeles in the early morning.

The next morning, Li Fu appeared at Gadot's apartment door carrying breakfast.

He didn't call ahead and opened the door with the spare key Gadot had given him.

It was quiet inside. The living room curtains were not yet drawn, the cushions on the sofa were piled up crookedly, and there was a half-empty glass of water on the coffee table.

The sound of running water coming from the bathroom suggested that Gadot had just gotten up.

Sure enough, upon hearing the door open, Gadot peeked out from the bathroom. She was wearing a loose white T-shirt, her hair was casually tied in a bun, and she wasn't wearing any makeup.

"Why did you come so early in the morning?"

Her voice was hoarse from just waking up.

"Isn't this business just finished?" Li Fu sat down on the sofa, leaning back in the cushions. The wound on his left shoulder was still throbbing. He had only given it a simple bandage last night.

After washing up, Gadot sat down next to him and reached out to touch his forehead.

"You don't look well. Didn't you sleep?"

"I don't sleep long," Li Fu said slowly.

"Then go to the bedroom and sleep some more. The sofa isn't comfortable," Gadot wisely refrained from asking what happened last night.

"No need, I'll just sit for a while."

Li Fu responded with a smile.

Gadot didn't insist and began to enjoy the breakfast he had brought back.

The reason Li Fu didn't tell her what happened last night wasn't because he distrusted her, but because he felt it was his business and had nothing to do with her.

He actually has a bit of ulterior motive for coming here now.

He didn't know if the police would summon him to cooperate with the investigation, and if they did, it would be better to go to the police station from here.

Gal Gadot has professional lawyers and currently wields considerable influence.

Winslop is capable of hiring a hitman to commit murder, so bribing the police is not out of the question. If he really encounters a corrupt cop, he has a professional lawyer, so at least the other party won't dare to openly accuse him of any crime.

However, for the first two days, everything went as usual.

The case seemed to have vanished with the wind, and no one paid any attention to it.

There was no news about the Chinatown shooting on television or in newspapers.

This is quite normal; gang fights happen almost every day in Los Angeles, and shootings and robberies are commonplace.

The deaths of two unidentified foreigners didn't even cause a ripple.

Li Fu temporarily stayed at Gadot's apartment, as she happened to have no business or announcements to attend to.

Both of them found themselves with a lot of free time.

However, an accident still occurred on the third day.

Around 2 PM, Li Fu was helping Gadot practice yoga when the police station called.

"Are you Mr. Li?"

A deep male voice came from the other end, carrying an official and unquestionable tone.

"I am," Li Fu said, frowning slightly.

"This is the police station. We need your cooperation in an investigation into a shooting that occurred in Chinatown in the west of the city. Please come to the downtown branch for questioning at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow."

The other party stated their purpose concisely and clearly.

"Okay," Li Fu replied, already prepared.

It's not surprising that the police had his contact information; they could find him through rental listings in Chinatown.

This number is also on the business cards of the liquor company, and most of the company's employees know it.

The Los Angeles police aren't stupid, they're just bad or inactive; finding out contact information is still quite simple.

A local news report was playing on the living room TV screen at that moment.

The image shows the main entrance of a hospital in downtown Los Angeles, with yellow police tape at the entrance and several police officers standing outside the tape, looking serious.

The scrolling news bar at the bottom of the screen reads, "Shooting at hospital, one security guard killed, gunman at large."

"...According to police, an unidentified male patient died this afternoon after being injected with an overdose of medication in his hospital ward. A male suspect shot and killed a hospital security guard and injured a nurse while fleeing, before escaping through a stairwell. Police are conducting a full-scale manhunt and remind citizens to be vigilant..."

Li Fu stared at the subtitles and immediately guessed that Mikhail must have been killed.

Everything went as he expected.

How could the employer behind the scenes possibly let a failed assassin live?

Even though the chances of tracing him are extremely slim.

However, the safest place is when a person is dead.

The new assassin, who went to silence them, killed a security guard while escaping, escalating the situation.

Therefore, the police had to take this case seriously.

Of course, he also understood that Mikhail had not bled to death, but had been taken to the hospital, not because the police or the hospital were acting out of kindness and wanted to save his life.

Under normal circumstances, even when a legitimate citizen calls for an ambulance, the ambulance may not arrive in time.

Often, emergency calls made at noon won't arrive until the afternoon, and calls made in the afternoon might not arrive until the evening.

Moreover, the cost is exceptionally high.

For ordinary citizens in need of emergency care, it is best for family members to drive them to the hospital; at the very least, taking a taxi is faster than an ambulance.

This is already a North American specialty.

As for the police, they are even less likely to pay for Mikhail's medical treatment.

It's highly likely that his survival instinct kicked in, and he bribed the police to take him to the hospital at his own expense.

But in the end, he still couldn't escape death.

Gadot noticed Li Fu's unusual behavior and turned to look at him. "What's wrong?"

Li Fu sat down next to her, his expression calm as if nothing had happened. "I have to go to the police station tomorrow morning."

"The police station?" Gadot was somewhat surprised.

"I'm here to cooperate with the investigation. Something happened to me in my rented room in Chinatown, and they want to know what happened."

Gadot's fingers clenched involuntarily. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"No," Li Fu shook his head, as if talking about a trivial matter, "It's just that someone tried to kill me, but I killed them in self-defense. Now that someone has died, the police station is conducting routine questioning."

"You said it was nothing, but someone died," Gadot snorted, clearly dissatisfied with his cover-up.

"I'm used to it," Li Fu shrugged, without saying anything more.

"I have a professional lawyer here, Alan Gold. Have him go with you tomorrow," Gadot said, suppressing her urge to delve deeper.

"OK, thank you," Li Fu said sincerely.

"Can you promise me one thing?" Gadot looked him straight in the eye.

"What?" Li Fu's heart skipped a beat.

"If anything happens, don't always think about handling it all by yourself," Gadot said, gently stroking his cheek.

"Understood," Li Fu nodded slightly.

The atmosphere subtly shifted at that moment.

Perhaps they themselves are not even aware of this.

The next day, Li Fu went to the police station early in the morning.

He was wearing a dark gray suit. The wound on his left shoulder didn't hurt much anymore, but the bandage was still on, and the suit jacket covered it perfectly.

Alan Gold arrived ten minutes earlier than him.

He stood at the entrance of the police station, carrying a briefcase, his hair neatly combed. When he saw Li Fu get out of the car, he walked over and shook hands politely.

"Hello, I'm Alan Gold. I already know the general situation. Once you're inside, no matter what they ask, don't say a word that's unrelated to the case."

"clear."

Li Fu knew the principle that the more you say, the more mistakes you make.

Logically, this was just a routine questioning, and the fact that the murderer was killed in self-defense is not uncommon in Los Angeles.

However, the real danger is that someone might sabotage things behind the scenes.

That's the real reason he brought a lawyer.

The two walked into the branch office together.

The interrogation room was small, with a table and four chairs, and the incandescent light was on even though it was broad daylight.

Li Fu sat on one side of the table, with Allen to his left and two detectives from the police station opposite him.

One was Jackson, a middle-aged white man with thinning hair.

The other is a young Black woman, Martinez.

Jackson opened the folder in front of him and pushed a few photos over. The first one was of Victor's body, lying face up in a pool of blood.

The second picture shows Mikhail tied to a corner, covered in blood.

The third image is a screenshot from a hospital corridor surveillance camera, showing a blurry figure running away from the hospital.

"Mr. Li, a shooting occurred in a rented room in Chinatown in the west of the city in the early hours of the 14th of this month," Jackson said in a flat voice, as if reading a report.

"One man died at the scene, and another man was taken to the hospital after being injured, but died there on the afternoon of the 16th. Our investigation has revealed that you rented that house. Were you in the house that night?"

Li Fu leaned back in his chair without saying a word.

Allen adjusted his glasses and leaned forward slightly. "My client is willing to cooperate with the investigation, but I have a question. In what capacity is he being questioned? Is he a client, a witness, or a suspect?"

Jackson and Martinez exchanged a glance.

"As far as we know, Mr. Li was in the rented room that night and is currently the party involved," Martinez's voice was softer than Jackson's. "Therefore, we hope that he can give a true account of what happened that night."

Allen nodded and said nothing more.

This is something he, as a lawyer, must emphasize.

Many police officers treat the person involved as a suspect.

"I didn't know those two people. That night I went to that rented room to pack my things and prepare to check out. The landlord can testify to that. They broke in, and they had guns. I thought I had encountered robbers..."

Li Fu gave a brief account of what happened that night.

Of course, I've omitted the part that shouldn't be mentioned.

"So you killed one, seriously injured another, and then left alone?" Jackson raised an eyebrow.

Normally, we should wait for the police to arrive.

"You know the slums better than I do. The security there is terrible. I don't know if they have any more helpers. For your safety, I have to leave for now..."

Li Fu found a suitable reason for himself.

Jackson opened his mouth as if to speak.

Allen interjected at the opportune moment, "The other party broke into the house with a gun. My client has the right to protect himself. This is legitimate self-defense. Leaving in advance to ensure his own safety is also reasonable and legal."